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ScanSoft, Inc. has announced a
set of agreements with IBM through which
the companies will extend speech technology and applications across
enterprise, desktop and multimodal environments. The relationship
encompasses dictation applications, telephony-based speech recognition
technology and applications, and text-to-speech solutions.

IBM will support and assist ScanSoft in porting and testing its
telephony applications for IBM's WebSphere platform through the agreement.
IBM's WebSphere customers will be able to add ScanSoft's VoiceXML-based
speech applications to their current platforms. The two companies will
also collaborate to ensure that the ScanSoft VoiceRequest and
DirectoryAssistance applications are compliant with the VoiceXML 2.0
standard and interoperable with IBM's voice portal solution, WebSphere
Voice Application Access.

IBM has also expanded its license agreement to resell ScanSoft
RealSpeak TTS, which converts text into human-sounding synthesized speech
in 20 languages, and is widely used within telephony server, PC and
embedded device applications. As speech applications become more
mainstream, this agreement will enable IBM to offer a choice of IBM or
RealSpeak TTS to customers, offering best-of-breed technology based on
language and platform. It will also significantly expand ScanSoft's
channel for RealSpeak worldwide.

In addition, IBM has granted ScanSoft global distribution rights to IBM
ViaVoice desktop dictation products. ScanSoft will market, distribute,
sell and support the product for the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh
platforms. The relationship leverages ScanSoft's expertise and resources
in delivering productivity applications through broad channels and will
help bring dictation solutions to a wider audience. IBM's ViaVoice desktop
products complement the ScanSoft Dragon NaturallySpeaking family by
expanding languages and channels for China, Germany, Japan and Latin
America, and by adding Macintosh-based editions to its product line. IBM
will continue to enhance and develop new versions of ViaVoice desktop
products.

"Speech technology is fast-becoming an integral part of the mainstream
pervasive computing infrastructure," said Rodney Adkins, general manager,
IBM Pervasive Computing Division. "This agreement gives our customers
greater options in speech applications, technologies and languages. This
not only expands both companies' offerings and routes to market in server
and embedded speech, paving the way for multimodal applications in the
future -- it also opens channels on the desktop diction market. This will
allow customers from both companies to further extend their use of speech
technology."

"We are pleased that IBM has selected ScanSoft as a key partner for its
speech solutions, providing broader opportunities for customers and
partners alike," said Paul Ricci, chairman and CEO of ScanSoft. "This
relationship allows our respective organizations to focus on customer
requirements and help accelerate the adoption of standards-based speech
solutions on a broad scale, spanning multimodal, enterprise and desktop
deployments."